Right now, my world seems to be spinning and I am just trying to catch my breath.

An unlicensed driver lost control of the car she was driving and crashed into our new car. Her car ended up on the sidewalk, wedged between our fence and a utility pole.

David was laid off from his job last Friday.

On Monday, we were deeply hurt by a family member and have been left feeling betrayed.

I have white knuckled it through the past few days and tried to keep in mind how lucky I am, in so many ways. But, if the great universe is listening, I have had enough! Please, don’t send any more bad things my way for a while. Pretty please.

David’s experience:
On Thursday of last week, the crew for the new DIY network show, “Restoration Realities” rolled into our house at 9am bringing cases of cameras, lighting equipment, audio equipment and power tools.

Our garage was transformed into a mini workshop, the back porch became the equipment staging area and our kitchen became the craft-service/break area. People whirled about setting up lights and cameras while the hosts planned out the projects and constructed the pieces needed.

We never knew how much work went into producing a show like this. Not only did they have to get the shots for the show, but off camera, they also had to do construction work. It was non-stop action that lasted till 11pm the first day, where at that point Heather and I were left with “homework” to complete for the next day.

Our job was to stain our newly constructed screen door. We stayed up till 1am completing the job and fell into bed knowing that at 7am it would all start again.

The second day proved to be even more hectic with the pressure to finish both projects (weather stripping the windows, the door and installing the new screen door) plus get all the rest of the shots done for the show.

In the end, it all came together. Although we did not get the security door we wanted, we did end up with a beautiful screen door that fits the period of the house, plus weather stripping. Everyone on the crew was really nice and we had some good times. We can’t wait to see the show!

Our metal security door. The bolts had to be cut off with saws.

Heather’s experience:
When I was a child, I was once in a television commercial for the Carson Perrie Scott department store based out of Chicago. The tv spot was an ad for Father’s Day. The fact that the father in the commercial had red hair and that my Mom was the Art Director made me a shoe-in for the part.

I don’t remember much about the experience except for the fact that the ad ran right after the television show “Gunsmoke.” What 7 year old, growing up in a small town in Indiana, wouldn’t be thrilled to be ON TV right after “Gunsmoke”?

When I was a little older I was on the local public television station’s morning show along with my dad and uncle. We were there to talk about the practice of raising and farming ducks, something that my family knows a thing or two about since that’s what they do for a living. I’m sure that was one riveting episode!

Yet, this impressive background in television didn’t begin to prepare me for being on a home improvement show, albeit a restoration minded one. First of all there is a whole crew of people that descend on your home. There are people in charge of lighting, sound, the cameras, a director, several producers, a production assistant, a lighting assistant, a carpenter and the show’s host. Most of these people come with equipment, large boxes of it.

Then there are the lights. These large, hot lights that are on tripod frames and ceiling height. A lot of time is spent adjusting the lighting and getting the correct angles. But, oh, the first time I saw our house on the monitors used to show what is being filmed, I was taken in by how the lighting made all the colors come alive and appear more vibrant, richer. All the wood trim seemed to almost glow. I wish our house always looked that lovely.

Bungalows are comfortable houses but rarely spacious and they feel much smaller once filled with a film crew, their equipment and all the towering lights. For someone who tends to feel claustrophobic in small spaces and shy around groups of people that I don’t know well, it was a bit overwhelming.

Some of the crew setting up a shot on Day 1.

I discovered the best thing hands down was something called “craft services” which consisted of every type soda pop, Doritos, Pringle, M & M, Kit Kat bar, crackers, nuts, and coffee imaginable. Our kitchen was converted into the craft services area and we were greeted with fresh out of the oven cinnamon rolls for breakfast, warm chocolate chip cookies and milk for a snack, and our lunches and dinners were picked up from local fast food restaurants.

Restorations Realities shot three episodes in Los Angeles. Our house was the second location. We felt a little sad when all the treats and sodas were packed up and moved on to the third house. It was easy to get used to such a great spread and someone to take our food order at meal times.

Even though the show is for the Do It Yourself network our screen door was pre-built and shipped in pieces to Los Angeles due the tight two day shooting schedule. If all we had to do was build a door that would be have been entirely do-able within the two day shoot. But, that doesn’t take into account the whole process of filming, and it is a process.

There is an outline or rough script that they follow as far as what needs to be said and shown on camera. The first day someone would tell us where to stand, give us an idea of what they would like us to say and how they would like us to move. Things like you’ll start at Point A and walk to Point B, positioning your body in a certain way so that you aren’t turning your back to the camera.

Each “scene” would need to be filmed several times to make sure the correct shots were captured with one of two cameras used. The scene would need to be reshot if someone flubbed a line or the lighting wasn’t just right. Or maybe you didn’t have enough “energy” after you had done a scene a few times so they shot it again to get a better reaction.

A big problem we ran into was noise from the city. We experienced all types of disruptions from planes flying overhead, to obnoxious horns that toot to a tune, lawn mowers or people in the neighborhood stopping by to ask what we were filming. Each of these disruptions required that we stop filming a scene and then start the scene over again after the noise had cleared.

I was most surprised by how much time and work it took to set up the scenes. The cameras had to be set up for the shots and the scene correctly lit. It sometimes took up to an hour to set up a scene and do the run through of where we were to stand and what we were supposed to say.

David and I were split up into teams. I worked on weather stripping with Bill the show’s host, while David worked with Chris the carpenter on the show to put together the screen door. Everything went well except for when I accidentally sanded Bill’s thumb with a power sander. Fortunately, he wasn’t hurt and possibly even benefited from the high-powered manicure.

Weather stripping the front door on Day 2.

The first day I had a wonderful time. The crew was very nice and joked around a lot off camera. The mood of the day was light hearted and playful. The first time I saw our screen door I was thrilled to see that it was finely crafted out of thick fir wood and beautiful. The quality of the craftsmanship was very high.

But, the second day just didn’t seem to go as well. I was too keyed up to sleep much after our first day of filming so I was tired. There was also some tension between people on the show which kind-of made the second day less fun. Things felt rushed and there was a lot less time spent explaining to us what was going to happen or what was being done to our house.

The way a door is to be hung or a threshold installed probably didn’t seem like a big deal to people working on the show but to someone who has spent the last two years of her life painstakingly restoring her house, those seemingly minor details were HUGE details to me. It just didn’t seem like there was enough time to explain what was going to happen and that caused me to feel very anxious.

About half way through the second day I really had doubts about why we decided to do the show and truthfully, I wanted everyone and their equipment out of our house. It is difficult to really describe what it is like to have people that you don’t know very well in and out of your house, moving around in frantic activity to adjust huge lights and cameras while projects are being done to your house. Projects that you are a part of but more in a secondary role because the projects have been planned out and are mainly being carried out by someone else.

The homeowners agree to the overall project idea upfront but in our experience, they have little say so as to what shape that project takes or how it is carried out. It is a strange feeling to be relegated to the role of sidekick after being the driving force in the restoration of your home.

It wasn’t that I didn’t like the film crew because that couldn’t be further from the truth. They bent over backwards to be nice to us. They are wonderful people who I genuinely enjoyed meeting and getting to know.

Having all this activity in the house was such a drastic change from my quite days spent with the dogs working from home. I started feeling very overwhelmed by the experience and upset because I didn’t understand how the projects were going to progress and come together in the end. Most importantly, I didn’t know what we would be left with after the film crew packed up and moved on to the next house.

Halfway through Day 2. If you know me well you can tell by the look on my face I’m stressed out but trying to play it off. This is my “just smile” only half a day left to go look. David is having a great time and going with the flow!

It was at this tense, meltdown moment that I had to film my personal interview. This is where they film you individually and ask you questions about your house, your hobbies and other get to know you better type of questions. It didn’t go well. If you watch the show I will be the woman with no hobby.

You mean that people who have full time jobs and restore their houses full time also have time for hobbies? Huh, how does that work? Watching television and sleeping didn’t seem to qualify. David, on the other hand, apparently sky dives in his free time! They say the wife is always the last know.

This is from a man who won’t tackle any home improvement project unless he’s clad head to toe in a hazmat suit, yet he wants America to believe he is jumping out of airplanes on the weekends. The David that does home improvement projects on tv is a very adventurous guy. In addition to sky diving he also engages in rock climbing. He might think this is really funny until he gets sky diving lessons for his birthday. That’s right, my husband thought it was fun to make up his hobbies, recounted bitterly by the woman who has NO hobby.

After my meltdown moment which I tried to play off, it is never a good idea to completely freak out in front of people you barely just met who are there for the purpose of capturing your likeness, house and spouse on film, I pulled myself together. It was 9 p.m. or later by the time we wrapped up the final shots which made for a long day for everyone. The crew had arrived at 7 a.m.

Filming the final shots on Day 2.

After having a week to reflect on the experience of being on a home improvement television show, I feel overall doing the show was a lot of fun. There were some tense, not so fun moments or hours, but in the end we were left with a beautiful screen door that we both love and a front entrance that is weather proofed. The show left our house in a better state than it us in when they arrived, were super nice to us and our dogs, plus they fed us tasty treats. Really, what more could any homeowner ask for?

I’m not sure how the screen door is going to work out for us long term from a security standpoint? We have considered putting a double cylinder deadbolt on the screen door but couldn’t bring ourselves to put a hole in our new door. A deadbolt also kind-of takes away from the welcoming aspect of a screen door.

The television show is called “Restoration Realities” on the DIY network. This is a brand new show and the first episode airs around March 6th. We don’t know when the episode we are on will air, they said it might not be until 2006, but we’ll keep you posted!

Our front entrance with the new screen door.

See more pics of from filming the show.

Read about how we were selected to be on the show.

Simon and Lulu photographed through the new screen door. So far they have been pretty good about not scratching it. They spent most of the two days we filmed upstairs and out of the way. Although, they were not very happy to miss out on getting attention from complete strangers – one of their great thrills in life!

The homeowner is always the last to know! Today I stumbled across photos of our house and a really nice article on Apartment Therapy San Francisco. The article posted almost a year ago and we had no idea. I’m such an Apartment Therapy fan so this is very exciting!

Check out the article here.

Update: The other site took down my article and photos this morning. Thank you to everyone who contacted them on our behalf!

Taking photos and content from my website without my consent or prior approval and posting them on your sham of a site, created for the sole purpose of generating Google ad dollars, is not appreciated. It is called stealing, but I’m sure you are already aware of that. You probably don’t care that it takes me a good amount of time to photograph and write the content on this blog.

My original article         Stolen article {they have taken it down}

Did you ever think that those ad dollars that you are earning off of my work would be better spent lining my pockets? Have you seen my house???? The next time you are on this site to pilfer content please click on an ad or two, we could really use the money. We promise to put it towards remodeling our kitchen.

Yes, we are using part of a wooden crate to cover up a big hole in our ceiling. Yes, I did use duct tape to tape over a huge hole in the wall.

It has finally sunk in that we don’t have the stamina to have house projects going all the time, one after another, lets hurry up and get everything done so our house is restored all ready. Our what seemed realistic at the time plan, the one where we complete all the work on our house within five years? It’s now the 10 year plan or the hopefully we get the house done before we die plan. Considering this is our fourth year in the house and we are barely halfway done, I think the new plan is a good call.

We have decided that completing one project a year is a more realistic pace for us. Although, it would have been nice to have restored the kitchen and our main bathroom before we hit upon the one-project-a-year-for-a-more-balanced-life approach. I think it is going to be a while before I have the ever changing kitchen of my dreams.

January
My dad came to visit and finished some plumbing work he had started the year before. This culminated with hooking up the sink in our downstairs half bath. It only took us 3 years to actually have water running out of a faucet in one of our bathrooms. Yeah!

February

The episode of “Restoration Realities” featuring us aired on the DIY television network. Along with the show’s host and carpenter we built a period appropriate screen door and weather stripped our windows and front door.

Heather + Dave on Restoration Realities Part 1
Restoration Realities Part 2
Restoration Realities Part 3
Restoration Realities Part 4

March
Did absolutely NO work on the house.

April
Did absolutely NO work on the house, but may have scared a very nice sounding family away from the idea of restoring a rundown Craftsman home of their own.

May
Did absolutely NO work on the house. Starting to see a theme here?

June
Did absolutely NO work on the house.

July
Did absolutely NO work on the house, but I finally resolved the ownership issue of the oil and mineral rights to our property.

August
Finally, some work on the house! Stripped the woodwork and doors of the stairwell, landing and upstairs back hallway. I purchased leaded glass French doors from the early 1900′s off of eBay for the upstairs back hallway.

September
I publicly confess that I have resentful feelings towards the house for the first time. I think I used the word “hate.” And, in certain moments I do hate the house. There, I said it again. We are at an odd point in our restoration experience. The honeymoon period with the house is definitely over.

Maybe this is normal? Maybe around year 4 of an extensive restoration project everyone starts hating their house a little bit, or at least all the time, money and energy that goes into it? After all the work on our house year, after year, after year, we are barely at the halfway point of having our home fully restored.

It’s not like I hate the house all the time. It comes and goes. There are moments when I also love our house. Most of those loving moments are spent in the completed portion of the house.

October
We discovered that the upstairs sleeping porch, a 1918 addition, was inadequately framed. I’m not sure if inadequate is a strong enough word to describe opening up a wall and discovering two 2×2′s as the sole support for a load bearing wall. Shocking comes to mind, so does what the hell were they thinking, quickly followed by I wonder how poorly the rest of the sleeping porch is built?

Pablo rebuilt the wall and installed the leaded glass French doors.

November
Ah, November…November was a month chock full of resentful, or maybe even hateful feelings. There was a lot to hate.

Getting right to it, we both hated the color I selected to paint the stairwell and hallway. I was going for silvery sage but ended up with baby nursery mint green. We received alot of wonderful paint color suggestions, but in the end decided to go with a blue green color that matches the original 1912 wall color of our bedroom.

This leads us to the most mysterious occurrence that has happened during our entire restoration process. Two weeks after the woodwork was stained and sealed with several coats of varnish the woodwork faded. Drastically. Overnight. We have no idea how or why this happened. It’s so unbelievable. I didn’t even know that such a thing was possible? We are hoping that someone out there might be able to provide an answer.

December
Our stairwell and back hallway project is completed. One more down, seven major projects left to go…

Lulu and Winston underneath the Christmas tree

David and I spent a quiet Christmas in our little bungalow, just the two of us.

Looking forward to 2007!

Our home inspection turned up many things, none of them good, but the strangest discovery was, to quote my husband, “a body-sized hole” in the crawl space underneath the house. I never actually saw the hole but made my husband describe it to me several times in detail. The hole was as wide as a man’s shoulders and at least 6 feet deep. How did David know it was that deep? Because the building inspector crawled over to the hole and poked a long stick into it. They didn’t discover a body, just some discarded rubble.

All old houses hold their mysteries but a body-sized hole wasn’t exactly one we wanted to know more about. Lying in bed that night, David and I speculated why anyone would dig a big hole underneath their house? Being a secret fan of true-crime murder novels (a guilty pleasure) and Court TV’s Forensic Files (a morbid fascination), all kinds of wild thoughts sprang to mind. The home’s present owner, Mr. Jolly, said he inherited the house from his grandmother and his uncle. Did we really know what happened to them? Plus, who has the last name of Jolly anyway? Maybe it was an alias or an attempt to hide a darker side? What if there were bodies buried under the house?

In the light of day, rationalism took over and we pushed those thoughts aside. We requested that Mr. Jolly have the hole filled and forgot all about it during the hectic time surrounding the move into our first home. Going back through the paperwork we recieved from the title company a contract to lease subsurface oil and gas caught my eye.

On February 1, 1957, John V. E. Santo and Antonia N. Santo entered into an agreement for the duration of 10 years with Union Oil Company of California “for the purpose of prospecting, exploring, mining, drilling and operating the land leased for oil, gas and other hydrocarbon substances” lying below a depth of 500 feet. The Santo’s would collect a royalty share of 1/6th of whatever was found. Although we don’t know for certain, we speculate that the body-sized hole was where they drilled for oil. For those of you who are wondering if it would be noisy or troublesome to have a search for oil going on underneath your dining room, the Santos owned the house but they didn’t live here. Their residence was in Pico, CA. This is probably around the time the upkeep on our house started to decline.

The house changed hands again and on April 20, 1964, Mr. Jolly’s grandmother, Winona M. Jolly, entered into the same contract with Union Oil Company of California for the duration of 10 years.

I don’t know if any oil or gas was discovered during those 17 years? Judging from the condition of our house, there didn’t seem to be a lot of money available to make necessary home repairs. I don’t think anyone struck it rich!

I have joined a group of bloggers who will be detailing our efforts to finally get organized over the coming year. Our group began in January, but being a little disorganized (ok, a LOT disorganized) I wrote my first post today.

Hopefully, my mother is still speaking to me.

Full article reposted below:

A Novel Approach
I am on the phone with my mother. She casually mentions that she is renting a storage space to hold some of her books. My Mom owns enough books to fill a small public library.

“Mom! You can’t be serious. It doesn’t make sense to pay money for a storage space. You have a house.”

“The house is too full. There’s no room. That is why I am renting the storage space.”

“But, Mom. That’s crazy. What about the basement?”

“Full.”

“The garage?”

“Full. And, before you ask, the barn is full, too.”

“It is a big barn, Mom.”

She is right, of course. The barn is filled floor to ceiling with treasures that haven’t seen the light of day in years and couldn’t be located if her life depended on it, yet she can’t part with any of them. How did her life get filled with so much stuff that there isn’t room for the things she really loves, like her books?

As I wonder how my Mom will even be able to read her books now that they reside in a storage unit, my thoughts turn to my own stash of books. Eight oversized cardboard boxes filled with books that I haven’t seen since the movers placed them on our sleeping porch (a.k.a. my junk room) when we moved into our house over six years ago. I feel profound sadness. What good are those books doing sitting in boxes where no one can read them?

“Wait a minute,” my best friend sighed into the phone. “You are giving all of your books away because you don’t want to be like your Mom?”

“This isn’t about my Mom.”

“Really? Your Mom rents a storage unit to house her books and the very next day you decide to donate all of your books to charity. You don’t see any connection?”

“Maybe this is a little bit about my Mom, but it is mostly about me. I need to find a better way to live.”

The boxes easily weigh over 50 lbs. and are too heavy for me to move. I go through each one and stack the books into piles on my office floor. I look at the mountains of books and tell myself over and over again that I can’t keep everything. I decide to keep only the books I will read again. Except nothing is ever that easy.

Eight weeks later I remind myself of the vow to streamline my life. I look at all the books still sitting on my office floor and question my commitment. Donating the books to the Downtown Women’s Center is the right thing to do. It will give someone else the opportunity to enjoy them much more than I have these past six years. I whisper, “I can’t keep everything!” one last time and load my books into the car.

Adam Janeiro is a Los Angeles real estate agent who specializes in older homes. He was kind enough to indulge my curiosity about buying and selling older homes, and the impact of the economy on the real estate market in Los Angeles’ historic neighborhoods.

1. 1912 Bungalow: You seem to have a passion for older homes. Where did that start?

Adam Janeiro: I grew up in Oakland California. My parents were teachers and we would often summer elsewhere. I was energized by Manhattan and bored by Montana. I was powerfully drawn to cities. On weekends, I would take BART to San Francisco, exit a station and begin walking, without plan or destination. Later, I realized I was most often drawn to those sections of the city wherein the buildings were oldest.

2. 1912 Bungalow: You work in a niche market, representing buyers and sellers of older homes. Are there any differences within this market compared to the traditional real estate market?

Adam Janeiro: The neighborhoods (wherein older homes are found) often feature a more complex web of uses, which create greater differences over smaller areas. This requires navigation and an understanding that often transcends the immediate visual experience. Also, value is often vested—or realized differently.

A thorough knowledge of the styles are essential too, because the thing that is the most unusual frequently holds the most value. An agent has to be able to identify and quantify those elements to which the most value is attached. Certain alterations, celebrated elsewhere, might have grave re-sale implications in historic districts.

3. 1912 Bungalow: You run a wonderful blog, Recentering El Pueblo. First of all, what does Recentering El Plueblo mean? What prompted you to start your blog?

Adam Janeiro: Los Angeles, and certainly the Los Angeles real estate industry, tends to be very West-centric; yet, the historic center of the city (of the Pueblo) lies elsewhere. It began not as a marketing tool—nicely it’s become a bit of one—but as an intellectual regimen, a discipline.

4. 1912 Bungalow: What is the biggest misconception about the real estate market right now?

Adam Janeiro: The biggest misconception concerns inventory. Inventory while abundant in some markets is sorely lacking in quality. Real estate reporting is frequently focused on quantity, rather than quality.

5. 1912 Bungalow: Are people putting off buying a home because they are waiting for home prices to drop further? Are people afraid to buy?

Adam Janeiro: Some are delaying, some are afraid, others are licking their chops. Some homeowners are also putting off selling too.

6. 1912 Bungalow: What advice do you have for home owners looking to sell in today’s market?

Adam Janeiro: I give different advice to each and every client, based on their singular life situation, including not to sell or not to buy—or to buy at once and sell now.

However, if one is truly interested in buying pre war housing stock (particularly pre WWI), one needs to look in all market climates and let opportunity be the driver. Because the number of available fully realized houses, with a high degree of original fabric, and sensitive, system updates, is often quite limited. I’ve represented many a buyer and seller on properties with three or four title changes in 100 years. I’ve a listing upcoming for a property owned continuously by one family since it was constructed in 1912. The inventory doesn’t always cooperate with whim, demand or macro economics.

7. 1912 Bungalow: In your experience, what are the things that most buyers desire or look for when shopping for an older home?

Adam Janeiro: Integrity, that is, a high degree of originality; and, a sympathetic context. Some degree of conformity, some basis for district status.

8. 1912 Bungalow: What are the biggest mistakes homeowners make when upgrading older homes? (Changes that decrease the resale value of their home)

Adam Janeiro: One—stucco over wood siding. Two—window replacement.

9. 1912 Bungalow: Lets say you just bought an older home and it needs some work, or maybe a lot of work. Where should you spend the money?

Adam Janeiro: Water is the destroyer of homes, and its occurrence must be managed; be it, a good roof, grading or gutters or French drains, supply lines and drains.

10. 1912 Bungalow: You have been restoring your own bungalow. What are some of the projects that you have tackled? Do you have any house projects going on right now?

Adam Janeiro: The list is too numerous. In December I’ll install a copper drip edge and continue some weather proofing projects using rigid insulation. I often experiment with products, if only to discuss applications with clients. In fact, I’m hoping to acquire a preservation worthy property—a project house in 2009, to continue my mission and my education.

Thanks Adam!

The only thing left to do is sand and refinish the little back hallway floor. I’ll start on that after the holidays.

Photo taken from the dining room. We selected a blue green color from Benjamin Moore’s Historical collection called Wythe Blue HC-143. It’s a darker version of our first paint color attempt. Our bedroom plaster was originally tinted a similiar color to Wythe Blue and served as inspiration.

Top of the stairwell. Light fixture is from Rejuvenation.

Taken at the top of the stairway landing, looking down.

Taken at the top of the stairway landing, looking towards the sleeping porch.

Photo of the antique leaded glass doors, taken from the upstairs bathroom. It is difficult to adequately photograph these beautiful doors due to the narrowness of the back hallway.

Photo of the back hallway taken from our bedroom.

This project somehow doesn’t seem as exciting as some of our past projects but it was just as much work!

A project looming way in the future, but a project none the less, is our garage. The original owner of our house, John L. Welsh, built a private garage with a dirt floor and a paper roof in 1919. That building is no longer standing.

Aren’t the doors on this garage beautiful?

A newer, larger garage was built a few years ago. The garage takes up most of the backyard. The cement lawn probably makes our garage appear even larger and uglier. Yards in Los Angeles tend to be small and filling in the backyard with cement is actually a fairly popular thing to do.

Designs for one, two and three car garages.

People often use the space for an outdoor patio. The previous owners of this house used the cement lawn to park their cars on. Growing up in the Midwest where green lawns covered acres and mowing took half a day, I find the cement lawns appallingly ugly.

I’ll post some pictures of our ugly garage and cement lawn soon. In the mean time, enjoy these vintage garage photos and illustrations that we are using for inspiration.

This charming illustration is from an Aladdin catalog.

You can see the Tudor influences on this garage.

Many homes in our neighborhood were built with a pergola framing, or if vine covered, obscuring the view of the garage.

This image is from “The Second Book of Houses” and the caption states: Simple and yet architecturally pleasing is the garage on the place of G. C. Price, at Charleston, West Va., of which Dennison & Hirons were the architects.

Image is also from “The Second Book of Houses”

Vintage garage that has survived to the present day.

This morning I noticed something strange on the upstairs bedroom ceiling. Since we are moving our office into that room while work is being done on our den, I have been spending more time in the extra bedroom upstairs. Upon closer investigation I realized it was mold!

Still in my pajamas, I began pulling down the paper that covered the plaster ceiling and found more mold…which led to pulling the paper off the wall and discovering even more mold. In an old house one bad thing always leads to another…

We had a substantial water leak while our roof was being replaced over Halloween. At first I thought we had lost the ceilings in the rooms where the water rained in but later realized it was paper covering the ceilings that was coming down and that the plaster may still be salvageable.

I decided I had better check the kitchen and discovered mold growing between the paper and the plaster ceiling and on part of the wall. Both the downstairs half bath and upstairs bathroom, which had also gotten wet, appeared to be fine.

The paper covering the upstairs bathroom was backed with burlap and I guess that allowed the plaster to breathe and dry out. The paper in the kitchen and upstairs bedroom are backed with a substance that closely resembles parchment paper. The parchment paper backing didn’t allow the wall to breathe so moisture was trapped between the parchment backing and the plaster allowing mold to grow. This is one of the best arguments I can think of for not covering plaster walls with wallpaper!

Armed with a facemask and my pink sunglasses to protect my eyes, I climbed on a ladder and began scrubbing the mold with hot water mixed with Clorox and a little dish soap. After I got the visible mold off with a wet rag, I scrubbed the area again with a brush and the bleach solution.

When the paper was pulled down lots of dust and little chips of paint – most likely lead paint – fell down, too. This had to be cleaned up with a shop vac with it’s Hepa filter. All the surfaces had to be wiped down with a wet rag and the floors had to be mopped.

What a way to start the day.

Oh, dear lord…the abatement guys knocked on my door after they were finished and said sorry. Sorry? The condition of our original clapboard siding looked pretty shabby to them. They know we are restoring the house and I think they feel sorry for us.

Odd hole cut into the side of our house.

There is a gaping hole in the side of our house next to our upstairs bathroom. Why? Maybe that is how someone got the original clawfoot bath tub out, other than that it is anyone’s guess?

I immediately went outside and started pulling the black paper off the house. The front and side of our house that faces the street look pretty good. Not great, but not in the sorry realm.

Termite damage

Although, the gaping hole in the South side of our house and bobbled back porch addition is pretty sorry. I am not prepared to deal with the condition of our wood any more today because I am afraid upon further inspection I will discover plenty to be sorry about. I keep wondering, “How much? How much is this going to cost us?”

Enclosed back porch. This doesn’t look pretty.

I have a work deadline that is due at the end of the day today, but am finding it difficult to concentrate. I support our house by doing freelance graphic design work. Our friend Jeff also stopped by and wanted me to touch up his acting photographs.

Meanwhile, I am on the phone with David, “No, there is a hole, a huge hole on the side of our house. What do you mean what type of hole? The type of hole with no wood over it! It looks like birds can fly into our house.”

All of our windows are missing a bottom piece of trim.

In the midst of all this Simon was left upstairs by himself and forgotten until I heard him tumbling down the stairs and landing at the bottom with a yip and a thud. Oh, the guilt! He was rushed to the vet. He has a sprained front leg but nothing is broken. I am supposed to keep him quiet for the next few days, easier said than done.

The area around the chimney obviously has some issues.

I thought I had prepared myself for whatever was waiting underneath the asbestos. I told everyone I was hoping for the best while preparing for the worst. Even though we have ended up somewhere in between, the eternal optimist in me feels disappointed, ok, crushed is more accurate.

My newly planted flowers didn’t fair well.

I am always hopeful that one project will go smoothly like it does on all those television home improvement shows. You know, the ones where they re-do a house in 4 days or something like that. We will be lucky to be finished 4 years!

Continued from Asbestos Shingles Bye-Bye!

It’s 10:30 at night and I am lying underneath our house in a 3 foot crawl space, wedged beneath two large intersecting pipes, wearing a bra and blue jeans in the semi darkness. The washer and dryer aren’t hooked up yet because we are still working on the back porch. It is much easier for me to get dirty and take a bath then for my shirt to get dirty and need to be hauled across town to the laundromat.

Rocks and dirt are cutting into my back as I wait for David to push one of seven coaxial cables through a small hole where our cement foundation connects to a floor joist. My “job” is to reach my hand into the small hole, grab the cable and pull it through to hole.

D (yelling through the floor boards): Do you see the cable yet?

H (yelling back): No.

D: How about now?

H: No, I don’t see anything. Shine the flashlight in the hole. No, I still don’t see the cable.

I hear David pulling the cable back out of the hole and putting it back in at a different angle.

H: Ok! I see it. Stop! Stop! Stop, pushing the cable.

I finally grab the cable and pull it through. With one hand, I keep pulling…and pulling…and pulling the cable.

H: David. DAVID.

D: Yeah?

H: How much cable is there?

D: About 15 feet.

H: We are going to be here ALL night.

D: Keep pulling. Just keep on pulling. Keep on pulling. Ok, keep on pulling.

H: Stop. Saying. KEEP. ON. PULLING! What do you think I’m doing?!

D: Ok. That’s it. Stop pulling. Stop pulling!

H: Oh, thank God. David, you did put the cable through the hole in the wall stud before you put it through the hole in the floor, right? David?

I see the cable frantically moving back up through the hole in the floor.

H: David? DAVID?! David, tell me you are kidding.

D: I’m not kidding. Sorry. Ok, lets do this again!

H: How many of these cables are we doing?

D: Seven.

H: David.

D: Yeah?

H: I’m in the dirt, in my bra, in the dark.

D: We’re almost done. You are doing a great job.

How does he know what type of job I’m doing? Why am I the one underneath the house? He’s not going to be winning a limbo contest any time soon I think to myself as I shimmy between the two large pipes, trying to find a more comfortable position.

When we purchased our bungalow it was covered in asbestos siding.

Our enclosed back porch covered in asbestos siding. 2003

The asbestos siding was in such poor condition that we decided to take our chances and remove it.

What we found underneath was a poorly constructed porch enclosure. 2004

Underneath the asbestos we found a poorly constructed, rotting enclosure. The enclosure was built with scrap wood and odds and ends.

Siding made from found odds and ends. The window juts out 10″ from the wall.

We were unsure what to do and didn’t want to put a lot of money into this little back porch. I considered covering over the whole mess with siding and dealing with it at a later date. I was lucky enough to receive some sage advice from a more experienced house restorer, “Covering over this would be like trying to fix a skull fracture with a band aid!”

The only thing left to do was to tear the whole mess down. 

The back door has been relocated to provide  a better traffic flow. Temporary plywood enclosure. 

New wood siding is a treated with an insecticide to prevent termites. Stained glass windows from a 1915 house found on eBay.

Primed and ready for paint.

Testing the final 2 paint color combinations. 

The house gets painted. 

The new back porch. 2004

Technology on the other hand, is my thing. That is why Heather mentioned that if I wanted to do any wiring or run any cables, now would be the time to do it. I also had a limited time since the contractors were trying to finish construction soon. So last week I spent the time making a list of what needed to be done:

• Remove the hanging coaxial cable from the OUTSIDE of the house that connects our cable modem in the office to the basement and re-wire through the walls on the inside of the house.

                              Before                                       After
  
  See how much nicer it looks without those ugly wires running down the side of the house?

• Remove the three coaxial cables connecting the satellite dish to the basment on the OUTSIDE of the house and re-wire through the walls on the inside.
• Cut three unused phone lines connecting our house to the telephone pole.
• Remove the ghetto installation of satellite cable through the cracked wood floor of the sun room connected to the dish on the roof and install the cable in the walls from the basement.
• Remove the unused hanging cable on the other side of the house which goes from the basement – through a hole in the shingles – through a hole in the closet wall – stapled around the door…
• Connect the DirecTv dish to the existing multiplexer switch in the basement and run cables to the bedroom and den.

  and to be adventurous…

• Setup and install Vonage VoIP phone service so we can stop paying expensive phone bills.

I honestly hated the thought that I would have to crawl on my back in the dirt and debris underneath the hardwood floors. The crawlspace under the house is very tight and cluttered with heating ducts, electrical wiring (old and new), phone wiring (old and new) and coaxil cables (old and new). As I was laying in the dirt underneath the house I thought to myself – “This would be a great place to film a scene about being buried alive”. Great thought huh?

On Sat I managed to rewire our cable modem and DirecTv service in the den. The bad part is I didn’t wear a mask while I worked in the basement so I breathed in a lot of dust and dirt. Definitely not good for the lungs. Tomorrow I would do better.

Sunday I started with the “easy” stuff first. I setup and installed the Vonage phone service which didn’t require me getting dirty. Once that was up and running I found our old gas mask and proceeded to the basement crawlspace for more crawling in the dirt fun. Everything went pretty smoothly. I was surprised that all the cables that I “made” actually worked. I was smart to test all the cables before running them in the wall by hooking the cable up to our old DirecTv receiver and connected the video output to my video camera. That way if I had a bad cable I wouldn’t have to rip the wire out of the walls and re-install.

After all the cables were installed and working I finally cut the remaining unsued phone cables from the back of the house.

Whew! I did it! I rewired all the cables to the inside of the house through the walls and under the floors. Plus – everything works!

Now I just need to tack up the wires to the wall studs and patch the holes in the walls and floors where the cables used to be.

It took all weekend to accomplish everything on the list but I’m happy to say that DirecTv, cable modem AND Vonage phone service is all up and running!

520 signatures were signed in agreement. J. L. Welsh, the man who built our home, was one of 20 who personally appeared before the notary public as the document was signed and notarized. The Declarations of Restrictions was to be in effect until January 1, 2023.

In its heyday, between 1900 and around 1920, West Adams was a center of fine living for Los Angeles and became a district of architect-designed mansions and charming bungalows. Residents included an oil magnate, a millionaire wine maker, and socialites as well as lawyers, doctors, and businessmen who filled in the smaller streets. Architects Charles and Henry Greene, Frank M. Tyler, and Alfred and Arthur Heineman built homes for clients living in West Adams. In 1948 racial covenants were outlawed and by the 1960′s West Adams was primarily made up of people who were “other than of Caucasian or white race.”

The idea that my husband who is Asian American could not have owned our home is very troubling to me. David is less bothered by the racial covenant. I asked him why and he said because it was a different time.

After two and a half years of nonstop restoration we have decided to take a break. Not that it was an official decision that we discussed, it was more of an unofficial decision where we just stopped working on the house. So, the the back porch waits with bathroom sink sitting on the floor, holes in the drywall where we moved the wiring and plumbing, and the floor needs to be sanded down one more time and sealed. Not big projects to be sure but we have lost our momentum.

In the past week the only project we have tackled is taking the new screen door latch apart and spraying the inside with cooking oil (because who wants to go to Home Depot to pick up WD-40 anyway?) so that it works smoother. We thought about documenting it for the web site but then decided, “Oh, what’s the point?”

We are taking a break for a couple of weeks or a couple of months, I’m not really sure, until the mood strikes us and working on the house starts to sound fun again. Don’t worry about us though, we’ll be going out to dinner, watching movies IN THE THEATER, meeting up with friends and doing all the things we put on hold because we were working on the house.

When Heather and I left tonight to go visit some friends, the first drizzle had appeared – signaling in the fall season in southern California. We were a little worried since our new roof is not yet complete, so we put a tarp over some of the boxes we had in the upstairs sun room which was exposed to the outside since the siding had been removed. We then headed out expecting a nice evening with friends. { Heather: Stupid or just optimistic? }

In the middle of dinner, after I had consumed my first martini and was well into my first beer, the rain started to really come down pounding on the streets and the rooftops. Heather started to get really worried because she was afraid our ceilings would get ruined. I shrugged the whole thing off thinking that there wasn’t anything we could do. After a couple minutes of debating the situation, Heather decided that she wanted to leave to check the house. I decided that I would go with her. So we cut our evening short and left.

Rain poured down from the sky on our drive home and the windshield wipers had difficulty in keeping a clear view of the road. The roads themselves were slick and the divider lines blended into the asphalt under sheets of water.

When we arrived home we quickly checked each room. The living room was ok. Our renovated dining room was ok (what a relief). Then I heard Heather yell, “We’ve got a huge problem!”

See that blue bucket on the top shelf just filling up with water?

I went into the kitchen and to my horror saw water dripping from different parts of the ceiling. Heather opened up the cabinets and brown water was dripping all over our clean dishes and glasses.

No, the horror isn’t how ugly our back porch is…it is that waterfall gushing down the wall!

We moved to the back porch and discovered a small waterfall flowing from the ceiling on the back porch and in the bathroom. We went upstairs and found water dripping in the upstairs bathroom and in the second bedroom as well.

We had a small disaster on our hands.

We scrambled around the house for buckets and I climbed up into the attic to see if I could contain the water up there. When I was in the attic I found water dripping from the roof, but not in huge quantities. Heather handed me paint trays and I put them under the leaks in the roof.

Crawlspace above the kitchen and back porch. Look at all that water! And that is knob and tube wiring!! Egads!!!

Heather told me the problem was actually in the crawlspace that was above the kitchen and back porch. As I was investigating the problem, Heather yelled “The ceiling is coming down in the kitchen! Get a bucket quick!” I ran downstairs with a bucket to find that the dripping was turning into a steady stream of brown water pissing from the ceiling.

Kitchen ceiling. The only thing still holding it up is the wallpaper.

At that point I decided I needed to get onto the roof and cover the unfinished roof with plastic. Heather called our contractor.

Heather wanted to get into the crawlspace with buckets to contain the water. I wanted to go out the second story window onto the unfinished part of the roof. I quickly moved boxes out from the crawl space and we put buckets in there to catch the water. Then I dismantled the window and tried to put a big piece of plastic on the roof. I was going to nail the plastic down but Heather didn’t want me out on the roof since it was raining.

Bathroom on the back porch flooded with water.

After some time our contractor and his father showed up to assess the situation. They then proceeded out the window and onto the roof with a big piece of plastic. They nailed the plastic down and told us they would be back tomorrow to finish the roof installation. They were very kind. They had even called earlier when we were out to tell us it was raining.

So now we have a HUGE mess. The ceilings need to be replaced in two rooms. They had to be replaced anyway, but now the need is more urgent. All our dishes need to be washed and the cabinets need to be cleaned and dried out.

Fun. { Heather: Not so much… }

This month we will celebrate our 4th year in the house. What a journey this has been.

Buying The House – Are We Really Doing This?
Gee, I can’t believe we are actually going to do this. What if we want to move to another country someday, you know, like next year? Are we sure we really want to do this? 235K is a LOT of money. Oh my God, I can’t sleep.

I can’t believe we have to go through all this paperwork just to buy a house.

What happened to our house? Why does the house look so different now that we own it? It looked so much better at the open house. Why didn’t we notice that the floors are all black and the house is so dirty? Wow, just look at this place. It’s kind-of dumpy. Make that totally dumpy. I can’t breathe. I need to open a window. Oh crap, all the windows are painted shut.

First 6 months – Euphoria and Unrealistic Expectations
I can’t believe we finally have a house to call our own. I’m so happy. Oh, what a beauty it will be someday when we get it all fixed up…like in 6 months from now. Hmmmm, it does need a lot of work. Well, maybe in 8 months then. This place just needs some tender loving care.

Man, we are so busy all the time now. It is hard to stay in touch with friends and family. All this unpacking, looking at paint chips, trolling eBay for antique light fixtures, reading everything I can find on bungalows and home decorating really takes a lot of time.

How romantic that our second wedding anniversary is spent together in our own little home. I’m so lucky to have a husband who is as excited as I am about starting our very first restoration project. I love my husband. I love our house.

The Rest of the First Year – All That Glitters is not Gold
I can’t believe that David is acting so mean! Why did we even buy this house if he is going to get angry at me every time we work on it? How could I know that stripping paint would be so damn difficult? It’s not my fault that I caught the wainscoting on fire. The heat gun got super hot.

We should be able to restore the dining room in a month, six weeks tops.

2nd Year – Reality Creeps In
I can’t believe we are STILL working on the dining room. How could we have spent six months working on one room? I can’t believe I actually thought we could restore a room a month! I was so naive. We might need to get on a five year plan.

I had no idea it would be so expensive to fix up the house. How did I think we were going to be able to restore the whole house with 15K? I mean, our house needs EVERYTHING. Why does everything cost so much?

All the cashiers at Home Depot greet me by my first name. We gotta get out more. I mean to someplace fun. I can’t even remember the last time we went out to dinner or to a movie.

Wow, our house has really appreciated in value and we have only been here a year. Interest rates keep on dropping. Lets refinance and take out a Home Equity Line of Credit so we can afford to get our roof fixed and to hire some plasters.

David started a web blog about the house for me. I’m not really sure why. I mean, what could I possibly have to say?

3rd Year – Restoration Full Steam Ahead
I can’t believe how awesome these plasters are! They can do everything. They can strip paint, plaster, do carpentry work and so much more. I think I’m in love! With the money we got from the Home Equity Line of Credit we should be able to swing lots of work on the house. Everything is going so much better now.

All my free time is spent on the house. I’m trying to schedule the carpenter, plumbers, electricians, oversee all the work being done and balance the budget. It really upsets me when these people don’t show up or even bother to call to say they can’t make it. What other industry does business like that?

David is refusing to talk with me any more about what colors to paint the house. Just because I change my mind once or twice a day, and maybe I am being obsessive, doesn’t mean we shouldn’t talk about it. I need to consider all the possibilities and all he wants to focus on is the end result.

Wow. The back porch needs to be completely ripped off and rebuilt. Our little back porch project has somehow spiraled into a full-on exterior restoration. This is crazy. I don’t think we can afford this.

Good thing interest rates are still low, but everyone says they are going to rise. Lets roll our Home Equity Line of Credit into a fixed second mortgage and take a little extra cash to finish up the work on the exterior.

It’s hard to remember how horrible our house used to be. I’m feeling really good about the house. It’s so exciting to see my vision for it coming to fruition.

4th Year – Maybe We Should Sell?
I can’t believe that we have spent all this time and money and are only half way done. I hate this house and all it’s problems. I am SO over working on the house and all things house related. I will never, ever take on a restoration project this extensive again. I must have been out of my mind!

Wow, the house across the street listed for over 600K and it needs lots of work – like our house needed lots of work when we bought it. Maybe we should sell? We could travel or move to Europe.

Hmmmm, I’m getting really bored. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to do some work on the house? It was really nice of David to clean out the back hallway so I can start restoration work upstairs.

5th yr – Who knows?

Update: 9th yr…oh, why didn’t we sell the house in year 4?

Oh, if it’s not one thing it’s another. My brother, John, jokingly calls our house The Money Pit and sometimes I think he may be right. We have been having problems with our furnace. Sometimes it works perfectly yet other times it will take up to 5 hours to start heating. Last night David said it was blowing out cold air.

This morning a service representative from Continental Refrigeration/Heating & Air, Inc. came out to inspect our furnace. He found that the intake and out-take exhaust pipes were improperly installed and sloping the wrong way causing condensation and water to get trapped in the pipes. He also recommended doing a complete reinstallation of all the duct work using our existing furnace. This would cost almost as much as the furnace itself. We have decided to have the pipes reinstalled but will wait to redo all the duct work next year.

Two months after we purchased the house my Dad came out and we (mostly he) installed central heating since our house had no heat and we didn’t have 10K for a furnace. He purchased the equipment in Indiana at a fraction of the cost it was being sold for in Los Angeles. I think he did a good job considering that he’s never installed a furnace before. It certainly got us through the winter last year but we want things to be right and so we will address these problems with the installation. In the mean time, since we have no heat, David is going to pick up a space heater. It gets cold at night in California!

See that armoire sitting on the front lawn? It needs to go into that open second story window. It has been determined that the armoire is 1.5 inches too tall to clear the narrow second floor landing. 1.5 inches!

Not to be deterred, these guys have a plan. Um, what exactly is the plan?

Are you sure about this? Because I’m not really convinced this is a good idea.

Oh my god! My heart skips a few beats as I imagine my antique armoire crashing to the ground and splintering into pieces. Between heart palpitations, I keep taking pictures to capture the end result…good or bad.

Ok, I can breathe again. It is going in!

After this the guys and I cracked open three cold ones…and I don’t even like beer.

Lately, I have been strangely drawn to wallpaper, which is crazy because I know from personal experience just how difficult it is to remove.

Image from Apartment Therapy

I am the same person who adamantly hated wallpaper and swore I would never do that to our beautiful plaster walls. Well, never say never…

I am considering indulging my wallpaper lust, but starting small by hanging it in our tiny powder room.

Our power room is in the midst of getting a few updates. We recently purchased an Ann sink from IKEA. It is about the only sink that I could find that fit our requirements of being affordable and small enough to work in the space. We also tiled behind the sink to prevent problems with water splashing onto the walls.

And I am considering the Mme. Jeanne wallpaper from Grow House Grow. The pattern is loosely based on mollusk scallop shells. I like how it mimics the round shape of the sink.

Hmmmmm…will I regret this? It isn’t as easy as painting over the walls if I change my mind.

I’m sure there are other realtors working in West Adams but here are the two we know personally. They also both live in West Adams. I think it is an advantage to work with a realtor who personally knows the area you wish to buy in.

Jim Weber (The realtor who we used to purchase our home)
Jim Weber is a great guy. He has lived in West Adams for many years in a beautiful old home which he and his family have restored. He is very knowledgeable and excited about older homes.

He gave David and I a tour of the area before we were sure this was an area we wanted to live in. We worked with him for over a year before finding our house. Did I mention that he is also a patient man? I’m sure I drove him crazy on many occasions but he was always very kind to us while we searched for just the right home. He did send us a Christmas card so maybe (hopefully) that means we are forgiven?

Because he has restored his own home and is involved in the restoration community, Jim has a lot of resources that he has shared with us from who to call for redoing your floors to title changes, and everything in between. That is the benefit of working with a realtor who lives and works in your area.

Jim Weber Realty Group
P.O. Box 15971
Los angeles, CA 90015
phone: 323.735.0700
email: jweber@victorianhomes.com
website: http://www.craftsmanhomes.com

Adam Janeiro
Adam Janeiro lives in the West Adams area in a bungalow that he and his wife have spent the past several years restoring. Adam has firsthand knowledge of the joys and challenges inherent in restoring an older home. When we first moved into the area they referred us to contractors, salvage yards and introduced us to some of our neighbors.

Adam works for City Living Realty (a brokerage with over twenty years experience in the neighborhood) and writes a blog about architecture, neighborhoods, urban issues, and real estate market conditions. The url is www.recenteringelpueblo.com. That’s right: Recentering El Pueblo.

Adam Janeiro
City Living Realty
323-401-3952
adam@thethinkery.com
www.recenteringelpueblo.com

The funny thing is earlier today we were talking with some neighbors about how the neighborhood seems to be getting better. Then on our evening walk a block and a half up our quiet little street we saw this in the alley…

This car has been gutted, obviously a victim of a GTA. That’s grand theft auto for all you people out there who don’t attend block club meetings. The police officer who joined the meeting went over such things as gang activity, GTA’s, and assaults for our area. I was the dumb girl fresh off the turnip truck who raised her hand, “Excuse me officer, what’s a GTA?”

All that is left is just the shell of the car. Everything down to the lights has been stripped away.

No seats, nothing. I think this car used to be some type of a Honda. Maybe a Civic? It’s hard to tell.

For those who haven’t been following along, we haven’t been able to bathe at home since our tub was removed. There is no other tub or shower in the house. The tub was held up in Customs and several other delays.

Our bathtub has finally arrived and is in place. Now, if we could just get ahold of the plumber. I am one stinky, cranky woman and I WILL hunt him down. Only kidding…sort-of.

The tile around the tub has been grouted. A lot of people cautioned us against going with white grout because it is supposedly difficult to keep clean. But, I love the look, so clean and…white.